Inspired by a passion for African cultures and beyond

Here’s the first of the sweet bits from Wassa Dance and Village Volunteers‘ 11th Annual Dance by Donation Fundraiser. We had a most wonderful time with 70+ dancers raising $3,600 in an hour’s class for this year’s micro lending partner SISI FUND in Kenya.

Join us this winter in seeding a new season of our potential for ease and joyful vitality.Come as you are, let the rhythms dance you deeper.

We will be
– cultivating fresh vibrancy in our physical wit and wisdom.
– immersing ourselves in afro-infused dance inspired by some of the best music the world has to offer.
– engaging our senses in the complex natural and cultural beauty that IS the Big Island. Ocean meets lava, mongoose, wild pigs, tree frogs, bird song, hula, solar power, compost, and not so far away strip malls all co-existing while Pele makes the newest earth in the world.

This sweet 6 night island style intensive features daily sessions of movement meditations and personal tuning leading into spirited dance segments in Wassa’s unique ways. Most afternoons and evenings are purposefully left open for participants to enjoy their own experience of the many delights and resources of Kalani and the island
Delicious daily buffet style meals, accommodations and use of Kalaniʼs grounds, pool and spa are included.* Spontaneous offerings for group or individual sessions TBA.

Wassa Cancellation Policy: Until December 15, 2015, deposits are refundable minus a $50 administrative fee. After December 15, 2015, there are no refunds on deposits unless I can replace your reservation, $50 administration fee applies.

*Prices subject to change without notice for unregistered participants.

For island residents or vacationers wishing to attend the daily dance intensive without Kalani lodging or meals, drop-in rates per class and weekly options are available as space allows. Pre-registration is strongly suggested for this option–which also includes a Kalani day pass with each class/series purchased. Lodging and meal options at Kalani may be purchased separately through Kalani.

Kalani Honua Retreat Center: Kalani means Harmony of Heaven and Earth and is located on 19 coastal acres of tropical beauty on the SE coast of Hawaii. Dramatic lava cliffs provide a haven for sunbathers, stargazers, whale watchers and those seeking a deep connection with the earth and sea. Other offerings at Kalani at additional cost include: Hawaiian and Thai massage, Yoga, Bodywork, Watsu (water-based bodywork) and Hawaiiana/Hula Classes.
For more info on Kalani: www.kalani.comTo book airport shuttles, please call Kalani’s Guest Services at 800-800-6886 at least a week prior to travel.

ThursdaysOct. 22 – November 19, 20156:15-7:15 p.m.Balance Studio418 North 35th StreetSeattle, WA 98103$ 50 for the series* or use your 10 class card.Drop-ins are welcome: $15 at the door.

This series offers a lively hour of choreographic fun designed to shake off the day and let our playful minds and bodies dance. Please contact Lara to sign up.*no refunds or extensions on individual series purchases

This show features a blend of international musicians along with some of Seattle’s very talented African and Funk/Blues artists.

Our good friends at Jazz Alley are offering the Wassa Dance community two for one admission if you call in for reservations and mention “Wassa”. Such a deal! That leaves $ for a nosh and a tip for your server at this special show.

This year’s event was a beautiful thing. 65+ dancers of many ages came. We raised $2,500 at the door with more donations coming in and corporate matching funds to add soon. Our musicians Thierno Diop, Caxambu Silverman, Denny Stern, Shemayim Elohim and Larry Swanson created such wonderful music to inspire and bring us all together in movement and spirit. Stay tuned for moire details and images.

Here comes my favorite event of the year where the musicians and I donate our time and ARC DANCE donates the space for this wonderful session that has become a beloved local tradition inviting a broad community to come together, dance, and share our resources with meaningful micro-lending projects in Africa.

Dance with us and contribute to a woman’s opportunity for economic freedom and independence.

Donations will go to the SiSi Fund (“Sister to Sister”) and Lenana Girls School students in Kiminini, Kenya. Your donations will provide small micro-loans to women, helping them start a micro-enterprise and will provide young women entrepreneurs with internship opportunities.

All donations are tax-deductible and eligible for company matching funds. If you can’t attend and want to contribute, send a check with “Wassa” on the memo line to: Village Volunteers, 5100 South Dawson Street, Suite 202, Seattle, WA 98118

Join us in seeding a new season of our potential for ease and joyful vitality.Come as you are, let the rhythms dance you deeper.

We will be
– cultivating fresh vibrancy in our physical wit and wisdom.
– immersing ourselves in afro-infused dance inspired by some of the best music the world has to offer.
– engaging our senses in the complex natural and cultural beauty that IS the Big Island. Ocean meets lava, mongoose, wild pigs, tree frogs, bird song, hula, solar power, compost, and not so far away strip malls all co-existing while Pele makes the newest earth in the world.

This sweet 5 night island style intensive features daily sessions of movement meditations and personal tuning leading into spirited dance segments in Wassa’s unique ways. Most afternoons and evenings are purposefully left open for participants to enjoy their own experience of the many delights and resources of Kalani and the island
Delicious daily buffet style meals, accommodations and use of Kalaniʼs grounds, pool and spa are included.* Spontaneous offerings for group or individual sessions TBA.

**For island residents or vacationers wishing to attend the daily dance intensive without Kalani lodging or meals, drop-in rates per class and weekly options are available as space allows. Pre-registration is strongly suggested for this option–which also includes a Kalani day pass with each class/series purchased. Lodging and meal options at Kalani may be purchased separately through Kalani.

Kalani Honua Retreat Center: Kalani means Harmony of Heaven and Earth and is located on 19 coastal acres of tropical beauty on the SE coast of Hawaii. Dramatic lava cliffs provide a haven for sunbathers, stargazers, whale watchers and those seeking a deep connection with the earth and sea.

Other offerings at Kalani at additional cost include: Hawaiian and Thai massage, Yoga, Bodywork, Watsu (water-based bodywork) and Hawaiiana/Hula Classes.
For more info on Kalani: www.kalani.com

Please call Kalani’s Guest Services at 800-800-6886 to book airport shuttles at least a week prior to travel.

This week Geoffrey Holder passed away. He was a true Renaissance man. Our legacy of arts and culture are greatly enhanced by his time on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Holder

Here are splendid tidbits from him :

Here’s a letter Leo Holder wrote about the last days with his father.

A little more than a week after developing pneumonia, Geoffrey Holder made a decision. He was calling the shots as always. He was done. 2 attempts at removing the breathing tube didn’t show promising results. In his truest moment of clarity since being rolled into I.C.U. he said he was good. Mouthing the words “No, I am not afraid” without a trace of negativity, sadness or bitterness, he sincerely was good with it. He had lived the fullest life he could possibly live, a 70 + year career in multiple art forms, and was still creating. Still painting, a bag of gold (of course) fabric and embellishments in his room for a new dress for my mother, sculptures made out of rope, baseball caps and wire hangers. New ideas every second, always restlessly chasing his too fertile mind. A week of breathing tubes and restrained hands had forced him to communicate with only cryptic clues which I was fortunate enough to be able to decipher at best 40% of the time.
The fact that we all struggled to understand him enraged him to the point that he could sometimes pull tantrums taking up to 4 people to restrain him from pulling out the wires. He was head strong (understatement), but he was also physically strong. Iron hand grip that no illness could weaken. 9 days of mouthing words that, because of the tubes, produced no sound forcing him to use his eyes to try to accentuate the point he was trying to make. But this didn’t mean he wasn’t still Geoffrey Holder. This didn’t mean an end to taking over. Holding court as he always did.
Directing and ordering people around. Choreographing. Getting his way. We still understood that part, and the sight of his closest friends and extended family brought out the best in him. Broad smiles in spite of the tubes, nodding approval of anything that met his standard (which was very high), and exuding pride and joy in all those in whom he saw a spark of magic and encouraged to blossom. The week saw a parade of friends from all over the world checking in to see him, hold is hand, rub his head, and give him the latest gossip. But he was still trying to tell me something, and although I was still the best at deciphering what he was saying, I still wasn’t getting it.

Saturday night I had a break through. After a good day for him, including a visit by Rev. Dr. Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus of RiversideChurch who offered prayer and described Geoffrey’s choreography as prayer itself, which made him beam, I brought in some music. “Bill Evans with Symphony Orchestra”, one of his all time favorites. He had once choreographed a piece to one of the cuts on the album… a throwaway ballet to fill out the program, but the music inspired him. From his bed, he started to, at first sway with the music, then the arms went up, and Geoffrey started to dance again. In his bed. Purest of spirits. Still Geoffrey Holder. Then he summoned me to take his hands, and this most unique dancer / choreographer pulled himself up from his bed as if to reach the sky. It was then I broke the code: he was telling me he was going to dance his way out. Still a Geoffrey Holder production. If it had been up to him, this evening’s solo would have been it. The higher he pulled himself up, the higher he wanted to fly. I had to let him down. Not yet. There are friends and family coming in from out of town. He resignedly shrugged his shoulders, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

I got it. Really. I got it. I walked out of the hospital elated. Ate a full meal for the first time in days, slept like a baby after. The next day would be his last. I was not sad. It wasn’t stressful for me to deal with him in this state. It was an honor and a privilege to tend to anything he needed. This impromptu dance was his dress rehearsal.

Next morning, I show up early. Possible second thoughts? Should we wait? What if he changes his mind? Did he understand what we were talking about here? Thoroughly. Mind as clear as crystal. “You still game for our dance tonight?” A nod, a smile, and a wink, with tubes still down his throat.. We’re still on. But he still wants to do it NOW. NOT later. He’s cranky. Sulks a while. Sleeps a while. Eventually snaps out of it.

From noon on, a caravan of friends and family from all over the globe come through the ICU wing. Ages 1 to 80. Young designers and artists he nurtured and who inspired him. YOUNGER dancers he encouraged to always play to the rear balcony with majesty. The now “elder statesmen” dancers on whom he built some of his signature ballets. His rat pack of buddies. Wayward saints he would offer food, drink, a shoulder to cry on, a couch to sleep it off, and lifetime’s worth of deep conversation and thought. Closest and oldest friends. Family.

They know they are here to say goodbye. He knows they are here to say goodbye. He greets them beaming with joy to see them. By this time I’m reading his lips better and am able to translate for him as much as I can. The last of them leave. It’s time for his one true love to have her time with him. His muse. Her champion. This is their time. 59 years distilled into 5 minutes of the gentlest looks and words as she caresses his noble brow one last time. She puts a note she wrote to him in is hand. She leaves.

Everyone is gone except me. My moment. I will be with him as he goes.

One more time: “you good?” Nod & faint smile. ‘you ready?” He is.

I have asked the doctors to not start the morphine drip right away, because I want him to have his solo on his own time. Knowing him, he might stop breathing right after his finale. For dramatic effect. He’s still Geoffrey Holder.
They remove the tube that has imprisoned him for the past 9 days and robbed this great communicator of the ability to speak. I remove the mittens that prevent his hands from moving freely.

I start the music, take his hands and start leading him, swaying them back and forth. And he lets go of me. He’s gonna wing it as he was prone to do when he was younger. Breathing on his own for the last time, Geoffrey Holder, eyes closed, performs his last solo to Bill Evans playing Faure’s Pavane. From his deathbed. The arms take flight, his beautiful hands articulate through the air, with grace. I whisper “shoulders” and they go into an undulating shimmy, rolling like waves. His Geoffrey Holder head gently rocks back and forth as he stretches out his right arm to deliver his trademark finger gesture, which once meant “you can’t afford this” and now is a subtle manifestation of pure human spirit and infinite wisdom. His musical timing still impeccable, bouncing off the notes, as if playing his own duet with Evan’s piano. Come the finale, he doesn’t lift himself of the bed as he planned; instead, one last gentle rock of the torso, crosses his arms and turns his head to the side in a pose worthy of Pavlova. All with a faint, gentile smile.

The orchestra finishes when he does. I loose it.

They administer the morphine drip and put an Oxygen mask over his face and I watch him begin taking his last breaths.

I put on some different music. I sit and watch him sleep, and breathe… 20 minutes later, he’s still breathing albeit with this gurgling sound you can hear though the mask. Another several minutes go by, he’s still breathing. Weakly, but still breathing… then his right hand starts to move. It looks like he’s using my mother’s note like a pencil, scratching the surface of the bed as if he’s drawing. This stops a few minutes later, then the left hand begins tapping. Through the Oxygen mask the gurgling starts creating it’s own rhythm. Not sure of what I’m hearing, I look up to see his mouth moving. I get closer to listen: “2, 3, 4….2, 3, 4… He’s counting! It gets stronger, and at it’s loudest sounds like the deep purr of a lion, then he says “Arms, 2, 3, 4, Turn, 2, 3, 4, Swing, 2, 3, 4, Down, 2, 3, 4….”

I called my mother at home, where she was having a reception in his honor. She picks up. There are friends and family telling Geoffrey stories simultaneously laughing and crying in the background.

“Hi, honey, Are you alright?”

“Yes actually… he hasn’t stopped breathing yet.” I tell her about his solo, which brings her to a smile and a lightening of mood. I continue:

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure Honey. What?

“Who the hell did you marry?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not gonna believe this. He’s got a morphine drip, going on over half an hour, an Oxygen mask on, his eyes closed, AND HE’S CHOREOGRAPHING!”

This brings her to her first laugh of the day. She now knows we will be alright.

He continues on like this for quite a while, and a doctor comes in to take some meter readings of the machines. I ask the doctor if this is normal. As she begins to explain to me about the process, his closed eyes burst open focused straight on us like lasers and he roars with all his might: “SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!! YOU’RE BREAKING MY CONCENTRATION!!!!!!!”

This past week I had the rare pleasure of being part of an interim intensive week for theater and choral students at Seattle University. I was invited by the organizer and chair of the theater department, Ki Gottberg, to be the “dance deep queen” leading the first hour warm up for their five day intensive that was facilitated by Dianne Meeks.

Opportunities like these are among my dream gigs. Being able to work with bright, open minded students who bring their curiosity, dedication and talent into a focused learning environment is such a pleasure. It is also very fun to share my passion and ideas about movement and culture with young adult bodies who are willing to be outside their physical norms. I also got to play them some wonderful music and artists who have inspired me for a long time. We started with a Habib Koite piece on day one and ended with Virginia Rodrigues’ version of “Uma Historia de Ifa” on day five. In between there was Chebbi Saba, Chiwoniso, Toure Kunda, Obo Addy, Yande Codou Sene………..

Here’s a sweet piece of feedback I got from one of the participants:“​I was initially nervous about taking a Wassa class because I don’t have much experience or natural talent in dancing and I was afraid of feeling self-conscious. There was really nothing to worry about! The dance style itself is so simple and rooted in the body’s natural movements. Plus, the killer music makes it hard to stop moving for even a second. I never felt embarrassed or overwhelmed, only joyous. Lara is a teacher that positively overflows with love for her students, and it was a pleasure learning from her.”